I’m not sure if this is sad, funny, or both, but the WaPo Ombudsman has to explain to his readers why they posted pictures of gays kissing after their legal marriage in DC. Here is a sample:
“I am 65 years old and I realize that the world is changing rapidly – much more rapidly than I would like it to,” she e-mailed. “While I realize that the Post must report on these changes – even the ones with which I do not agree – I feel that the picture on Thursday morning was an affront to the majority of your readership. It is not something that I want coming into my home. I believe that even your editors know that it would have been better placed in the Metro section and that it would have mitigated its impact to do so.”
Wrote Lee Miller of Columbia: “I would appreciate it if your cover pictures would not be so disturbing where my kids can see it easily on the kitchen table… please don’t shove this “Gay” business in our face. This is something that should have shown up on an inside page or two (without the picture).”
I’m really not sure what is up with the mindset that gets all worked up about two people in love, but is ok with the daily torture apologia from Thiessen and Krauthammer and Kristol. There is a lot of offensive shit in the Washington Post, but most of it is on the opinion pages, and it certainly isn’t two Americans celebrating their wedding.
ajr22
Speaking of Theison he is on the daily show, i expect Stewart to bring the ether. (if you don’t know what ether is your hip hop lingo is lacking, and so is your street cred)
thejoz
What is far more important is that this woman is 65 years old and is worried about what her “kids” will see.
Either she’s got some really, really repressed adult children, or she waited really, really, really long to have children.
Either way, that’s far more disturbing than seeing any two men or two women expressing their love with a kiss in a newspaper.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
I love the scare quotes, the capital G is interesting, too. I wonder if they edited out the ALL CAPS: “PLEASE don’t SHOVE this ‘GAY’ business in our FACE”
I like to think Katharine Graham is spinning in her grave. But if she really wants my respect she’ll have to come back and smack Donnie and the Weymouths upside the head.
Mumphrey
Yes, well, I guess Thiessen and Krauthammer, as loathesome as they are, won’t turn your helpless children GAY!!!!!!!! It might turn them into soulless, sociopathic sadists, but that isn’t nearly as awful as being GAY!!!! But 2 guys kissing? Well, if that won’t turn your poor children GAY!!!!!!!, then I don’t know what will. It almost turned me gay, but then I’m no longer a helpless child, and therefore, I can withstand such apalling, in-my-face gayness.
Ash Can
Gay love is shrill.
margaret
Ah! The old “accommodate the narrow minded, bigoted assholes” complaint. These people are already extinct, they’re just too stupid to crawl into the nearest tar pit.
Jay C
@Ash Can:
And torture-apologia is Serious. Very Serious. In fact, absolutely SERIOUS. And it’s going to be preferred as front-page Seriousity because the Washington Villagers are, first and foremost Serious Commentators, and anything that might cast aspersions on their Very Serious Seriousness, like icky gay fag-stuff is a definite NOT. Not in The Post, at any rate…
Assholes.
RedKitten
We went through the SAME damn thing back in 2003 when Michael Stark and Michael Leshner got married. There was a (very chaste) photo of them kissing on the front page of the Halifax Chronicle-Herald. They got angry letters and emails for MONTHS afterwards.
Lev
This sentence is the pivotal one. If you are a subscriber to the Washington Post, the odds are that you live in the Washington area. And Washington D.C. democratically legalized gay marriage. Therefore, it is unlikely that a majority of the paper’s readership was affronted.
Of course, the unspoken assumption is that the silent majority is still on the Republicans’ side.
SiubhanDuinne
@thejoz: Well in fairness, I think the 65-year-old and the woman worried about the Effect of the Gay on Her Kids, are two different people. But John’s larger point is well-taken, about the regular apologists for torture being acceptable whereas married love is not. At least, not in Hiattland.
Elisabeth
@thejoz:
FWIW, I’m pretty sure that’s two different complaints.
I’m impressed that the 65-year-old anti-gay person in the first letter knew enough to email the Post.
DonkeyKong
Post a picture on the front page of a tortured iraqi covered in shit being bit by guard dogs. That way they can take the front page and masturbate to it in the bathroom like a normal redblooded american.
joe from Lowell
Amen, John.
mai naem
Well, sheet, these poor people have had to put up with pics of a woman speaker of the house from
gaydomsan francisco of all places, then amuslim nigblack president. The kissing of the gays, well, that’s just the straw that broke the camel’s back. How much do you expect them to tolerate?Aaron
The “won’t someone think of the children” argument is such bullshit. It is basically a convenient way of justifying your bigotry without having to own it.
“No, I am fine with the ‘Gay,’ but my kids may start having gay-abortion-communo-fascist-terrorist sex if it shows up anywhere they can see. Oh, and please bring back photos of missiles blowing up buildings and reports of torture. They are traditional american values”
gbear
How come gay night on BJ leaves me feeling like going to bed at 9:00 with the blankets pulled over my head? The MSM is an idiot freak show when it comes to teh gay.
joe from Lowell
No…no they will not. Not even remotely.
freelancer
feel free to borrow my tag “It Ain’t White Boy Day”.
Batocchio
“Bad jokes and gay marriage are destroying this country. But torture can save it.” –Jon Stewart
Make7
I’ll bet if they start printing pictures of two hot lesbians on the front page every day, the Post would more than make up for the subscriptions they lost.
parksideq
@ajr22: Ether, after all these years, is still the best diss record ever made.
Back on topic, they really couldn’t find a better reason than a pic of two dudes kissing (at their wedding, fer chrissakes!) which makes the Kaplan Daily an “affront to the majority of the readership”?
ETA: Ok, it’s not exactly a wedding photo, but the point still stands. I wonder how much noise these people made about the photo accompanying the news of Loving v. Virginia’s outcome.
freelancer
Seriously, Is that Charlie Crist in the “Gay Mature Dating” banner ad up top?!
Jay C
@parksideq:
Actually, the WaPo‘s picture wasn’t at the dudes’ wedding: they had just gotten their license as soon as they were allowed to – and were (obviously) elated.
Interesting thing though: the comments to the ombudsman’s blogpost seemed, in the main, quite supportive of the Post, the two marrying guys, and the idea of SSM in general. Of course, there were a few anti-gay trolls, and the usual agitated Bible-thumpers, but, whether through self-selection or some other principle, if the blog-commenters were in any way the average representative of the Post‘s readers, it kinda gainsays the notion that publishing a FP picture of a gay couple kissing is “an affront to the majority of [the] readership“. A majority of old fogies and bigots, maybe, but everyone?
Joshua Norton
In fact Krauthammer just may be the antidote.
slag
Very well said!
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
And another sign that the world is changing too fast for her is that some black man keeps showing up with the seal of the president of the United States behind him, and he’s not cleaning it. That and the “Gay” is just too much.
Her teddy bear just isn’t keeping the world back any more.
fraught
@parksideq: I think there were no pictures of inter-racial couples kissing on front pages until maybe the late seventies. The first black/white kiss on TV was in 1968 on Star Trek and caused the same sort of uproar as gay kissing does in the MSM. Strange that gay kissing on TV is commonplace now but in the higher brow news venues it still gets pulses gushing. Poor overbred Va. house wives still throw up in their mouths when they see two males locking lips. Was the SS couple AA?
Mike in NC
Thanks for your deep thoughts, but hurry up and die, you imbecile! I just despise the self-absorbed elderly.
Craig
@ajr22: It took him a while, but he finished strong.
fraught
Thiessen and Krauthammer, in fact, do turn women gay. It’s undisputed.
Also, it’s not well known but Thiessen and Krauthammer are former lesbians who have undergone gender reassignment surgery, on the same operating table since they are also conjoined twins, although, somehow, with different mothers but the same father, a man named Kagan.
Mike P
@Mike in NC:
And remember, keep your grimy, government hands off my Medicare!
E. Dippus
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Yeah! We conservatives are sick and tired of having to swallow this gay business being rammed down our throats. The media wants us to bend over and grab the ankles with their gay agenda. They’re being massive dicks about it. Always gay-pride parading in their latent-rubber suits – can’t the gays get over themselves and stop waving it in our faces? They should learn to go down on their knees in Church every Sunday like real Americans.
Fern
@ajr22: Good thing I make no claim of street cred.
Mike P
After reading Alexander’s column, he’s actually earned back some of the respect he lost when he was wandering around defending George Will’s ridiculous climate change op-ed’s.
From the close of his post:
Did the Post go too far? Of course not. The photo deserved to be in newspaper and on its Web site, and it warranted front-page display.
News photos capture reality. And the prominent display reflects the historic significance of what was occurring. The recent D.C. Council decision to approve same-sex marriage was the culmination of a decades-long gay rights fight for equality. Same-sex marriage is now legal in the District. The photo of Ames and Ariga kissing simply showed joy that would be exhibited by any couple planning to wed – especially a couple who previously had been denied the legal right to marry.
There was a time, after court-ordered integration, when readers complained about front-page photos of blacks mixing with whites. Today, photo images of same-sex couples capture the same reality of societal change.
Translated from the High Journalism, I think this reads: “Go f#$k off, you old bigots.”
GregB
When will the Post stop with those offensive pictures of teh gays and start reposting some of those soothing Abu Ghraib torture photos?
Keep it together granny.
Graeme
HELLS YEAH, and I say that as another erstwhile W. voter.
I had a problem with teh ghey in high school, until I realized I knew & liked gay people. And then I realized the real problem was my problem.
YellowJournalism
Are you kidding me? This is the same woman who probably has sent her family members every single scary chain e-mail and spam detailing Republican lies, urban legends, and freaky full-of-shit hoaxes that annoy the rest of us. She’s also the same person who sends around those inspirational quotes with pictures of Snoopy made out of 0’s and 1’s at the scroll-down.
asiangrrlMN
@gbear: Hey, if you got a hottie under your blankets, it doesn’t matter what time you turn out the lights.
@Belafon (formerly anonevent):
@GregB:
The snark is strong tonight! Good lord, but they are delicate flowers.
CanadaGoose
I am 67-years-old and I say there’s nothing wrong with a picture of people kissing. What’s the matter with these jerks?
This “65-year-old” had to be in her twenties during the 1960s. Learned nothing I guess.
Mark S.
@YellowJournalism:
Unfortunately, my parents have discovered the joys of forwarding this crap. My favorite was the one that claimed Mr. Rogers was an ex-Green Beret who killed a battalion of Japanese with his bare hands or something like that.
Tattoosydney
Fine then – I’m reposting this.
First gay marriage ceremony in DC. Anyone who can watch this without a tear in their eye and a warm feeling in their heart is probably dead.
Watch out – watching this may turn you into a large, black lesbian.
Linda Featheringill
To Canada Goose:
Right on. [See, I did learn some things in the 60s.]
But really – the age of the idiot is not significant. The stupidity is what is important.
FlipYrWhig
@CanadaGoose: I was going to say the same thing. If you’re 65 now, you were 23 in 1968 and 19 when the Beatles played Ed Sullivan. At one point you may actually have been cool. Dig out your freak flag and let that fucker fly.
Les
@fraught: Dude/tte! I’m a transman, and why would ya wanna smear us guys by calling Thiessan/Krauthammer one of us? What did we ever do to you, huh? And I’m sure conjoined twins could take umbrage too! Harumph…
And, as to your earlier question, if it’s the picture *I* saw, one guy was white, and the other Asian.
Digital Amish
Speaking of Thiessen, watched him on Jon Stewart’s show tonight. Boy, there’s a guy that would benefit greatly from being thrown in a cell and beaten daily.
Tim in SF
Why do these assholes ALWAYS inflate their opinion? Isn’t it enough to say, “_I_ found this offensive”? Why do they always seem to slip in some inference that they somehow speak for more than just themselves if not the majority? These are the same assholes who are always speaking for God, telling me what God thinks of me or my “lifestyle,” that the Almighty somehow shares whatever small, should-be-shameful bigotry they themselves carry around like a skin disease.
Comrade Kevin
@Tim in SF: and yet, I bet the letter writer couldn’t stop staring at it.
asiangrrlMN
@Tattoosydney: So heartwarming. I propose we plan same-sex kiss-ins all over this great country of ours. You can fly in with your hubby. Maybe we can kill off all the old bigoted fuckers by inducing heart attacks!
Tattoosydney
Bloody hell – I just looked at the picture, and it’s two clean cut guys in ties giving each other a little peck on the lips. From the reactions, I expected full on tongues between three hairy bears wearing only chaps and brandishing hot pink jelly dildoes.
I’m glad (or not) that these people never see the Sydney Morning Herald or the Daily Telegraph the day after Mardi Gras. Can anyone spell “cerebral haemorrhage”?
Yutsano
@Tattoosydney: I wouldn’t think it would be two biker bears swallowing each others’ tongues. Inasmuch as the shock value would send that day’s circulation through the roof (you have to admit the rubberneck value alone would accomplish that) I highly doubt even the Post could handle that image.
asiangrrlMN
@Tattoosydney: Holy crap. I just took a look, too. If it got any more sanitized than that, it could be on an episode of Leave It To Beaver. Shit. I give more tongue to my cats.
Did I say that out loud?
@Yutsano: Hiya. How you doing?
I love it when both of you are in the same place at the same time. Makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside.
Tattoosydney
@Yutsano:
I didn’t think they would publish that kind of photo – just that reactions like “an affront to the majority of your readership”, “so disturbing” “shove this “Gay” business in our face” “makes me cringe.” would seem to justify something shocking – not two white-bread men in a lip peck.
Gawd – your right wing nutbags are so much worse even than our right wing nutbags.
Yutsano
@asiangrrlMN: When I was in college, I lived in a house with three other (straight) guys. Prominently posted in the kitchen was the following sign:
asiangrrlMN
@Yutsano: I think I would fit right in!
@Tattoosydney: No kidding. But, it’s the same kind of reaction as all those nimrods who got the vapors from seeing Janet Jackson’s pasty-covered nipple at the Super Bowl. Bunch of damn hypocrites–all of them.
Yutsano
@Tattoosydney:
Truer words have never been spoken mi amici.
Tattoosydney
@asiangrrlMN:
@Yutsano:
Sorry to duck and run… I’m off to have dinner with a friend.. well, one of those friends you see every three months or so who spends most of the time talking about themselves… wish me luck and patience
asiangrrlMN
@Tattoosydney: Good luck! I hope you at least are fed well.
P.S. I first read that as “Sorry to dick and run”.
@Yutsano: Ooooh, I like that strategy!
Yutsano
@Tattoosydney: Luck and patience, I think we all have that type of friend honestly. Try to get some small type of revenge and select a cuisine the friend doesn’t care for but insist you’re craving it (bonus points if you actually are!) see if that possibly limits the visit. If worst comes to worst go on about the wedding endlessly regardless of what they’re talking about. I doubt they’ll get the hint but at least you’ll feel better. Okay I’ll put the Scorpio stinger away now. :)
mcc
Maybe the Post should make a version of its newspaper consisting only of the editorial/op-ed pages, so that those who are offended by the world around them may avoid being exposed to it while still enjoying the Post.
asiangrrlMN
@mcc: I like it! They can put it behind a wall and make the bigots pay for it!
kommrade reproductive vigor
Shorter Assholes Writing The Post: I just got an e-mail from a friend telling me to email you to tell you how offended I am by a picture I haven’t seen in a paper I’ve never read. Think of the children! Also!
Anyone bothered by that photo would also be bothered by a photo of kittens, puppies or ducklings because that’s how cute and inoffensive that picture is.
Cerberus
“I am 65 years old and I realize that the world is changing rapidly – much more rapidly than I would like it to.”
That’s really where it could stop because the rest is based on that. These people grew up in a nice safe white flight bubble where they fled those nasty cities and having to experience cultures outside white, middle-class, blandly christian, suburban/exurban conservatism.
And now the “them” is growing in numbers and power and legitimacy that there is no more refuge from having to admit the “them” exist and are full people. One can keep fleeing, watch only Fox News, restrict reality into tiny holes, but there’s still a black man in front of the presidential seal, women keep showing up in workplaces and seem less and less keen about going back to the kitchens once and for all, and more and more states are allowing gays their equal rights. And this means seeing these people acknowledged and out even in their little oases.
They put up armed compounds and Homeowner’s Associations and still a gay couple moves in down the block and the oriental family and even that black family and none of the young women in the neighborhood congratulates and looks up to you when you say you’re a “proud homemaker”.
The world moved on and maybe wasting your life fighting tooth and nail against it doing so, sacrificing all your dreams for toeing the “supposed to” line of Jesusy goodness was a bad thing. Maybe one should think about how one spent their life and recognize the wasted potential.
But that’s frightening, hard, makes one vulnerable or even heretical to a dying ideology one was trained to think in.
So they mail letters to the media trying to shame them out of reporting the fact that the world is changing around them in hopes of prolonging the illusion a few more blessed years until they’re too senile to care.
RSA
@Mike P:
I liked this last paragraph, too. It’s the obvious comparison, especially in this context. That is, people can argue (wrongly) that gay marriage isn’t a civil rights issue, but it’s much harder to argue that it’s not news.
kommrade reproductive vigor
The top photo on the front page of today’s Post shows how much of an impact all the screeching has had: Two men holding their insanely cute baby daughters as they prepare to get hitched. (Can’t find a link.)
Having freaked the fuck out over two guys exchanging a peck on the lips, it’ll be amusing to see how the Professional Pearl Clutching Citizens Club react to yet another assault on traditional values.
And since the couple is African-American, I’m hoping it will give the Bishop Harry Jackass – Sorry, Jackson, a coronary.
Also, what Cerberus sayeth.
chopper
reminds me of an old LTE in Time back in 1925:
yeah, quit shoving ‘teh gaye’ in our faces. put them on page 15 where they belong.
Ash Can
@kommrade reproductive vigor:
It’s a chilly, damp, gray morning here, but I feel all toasty warm and fuzzy inside reading this. One, because, well, so much for the screechers. Two, because the Post shows that it still clings to a modicum of human decency. And last but certainly not least, awwwwww! The two grooms and their babies! How sweet!
And a fourth reason, blessings on the District of Columbia for doing right by gays, because, among many other benefits, the gay-marriage ruling is a godsend for gay parents. Whatever you opinion of the institution of marriage in general, the fact is, it makes having and raising kids easier, if only by acting as an insurance policy. Since the family to which those sweet little girls belong will now be legally recognized, so will all of their practical rights — inheritance, custody, benefits, residence, etc. The entire life situation of those little girls is so much more secure now that their daddies are able to marry.
Ash Can
@chopper:
And for FSM’s sake, don’t call them “mister.”
zoe kentucky in pittsburgh
OMG, people in love kissing and being happy– THAT IS SO OFFENSIVE!!!111!!!! My eyes, they burn from being exposed to other people’s happiness! Showing such pictures interferes with my ability to raise my children to hate/loathe gay people or viewing them as scary, scary freaks. Damn you, Washington Post, damn you to hell! How dare NEWS in a NEWSPAPER ever challenge my beliefs and ideas!
(/snark)
I hope to marry my partner of 11 years legally in DC this summer. We had a big wedding right outside of DC in 2002 (we lived there at the time) and can’t wait to go back and do it legally, just for shits and giggles, and to have the framed piece of paper that is totally meaningless in PA. We’ve joked about traveling around and collecting marriage licenses– Massachusetts, Connecticut, Vermont, Iowa, and DC. Unforunately we just don’t have the time/money to do it.
Scruffy McSnufflepuss
I can still remember when I was about 14 years old seeing a picture on the front page of the paper of 3 white Afrikaan nationalists being shot dead by the police in South Africa after crashing their car and trying to kill both the police and the cameraman.
It was graphic and disturbing, a lot worse than a couple of people in love kissing. But I didn’t complain about it then, and I’m not complaining about it now. It was news. It was newsworthy. It belongs in the newspaper. If the news offends you, don’t buy or look at a newspaper.
Mr. Prosser
When are you going to understand that most people look at the pictures and scan the captions, then go to the comics? They don’t read the editorial pages.
Mike in NC
That was written in 1925? I’d have guessed last month! Seems some things never change.
kommrade reproductive vigor
@chopper: I know there’s a Quote of the Week, but there needs to be a Find of the Week and this should win the first one.
Bloody hell, the entire thing is a treasure trove of Plus que ca change, c’est la meme merde.
someguy
Lee Miller and the rest of his ilk should have their bigotry thrust in their faces. The reason people like him feel guilt about their kids seeing Teh Ghey Sexxor is that they know their bigotry is wrong. Jerks.
Tom Hilton
I wrote to the ombudsman about Thiessen’s latest (“possibly the most disgraceful thing ever published in the Washington Post”). Haven’t heard back, but I hope to god enough other people are complaining that he actually has to address it.
Tom Hilton
Spoke too soon–the ombudsman just responded:
In other words, homophobic rage is an issue for the Ombudsman; complaints about McCarthyite smears are not. Good to know.
Comrade Dread
Yeah, I don’t get it.
The libertarian side of me would say to stop subscribing to the paper if you don’t care for the content.
The religious side would say, that I’d be happy if the worst thing I had to object to about the paper was a picture of two guys or two girls kissing and not its complete embrace and cheerleading of torture, war, needless death, and full blown corporatism.
fasteddie9318
Why is it that whenever “straight” men complain about gay men, it always involves having something shoved in their faces or crammed down their throats?
Rebecca
@fasteddie9318:
Indeed.
ruemara
These people need real help with their issues. I’m all for gay males kissing. In fact, every pride fest, the pr0n booth is my first stop.
redoubt
@Tim in SF: You could always reply “Allahu Akbar” at them. Then watch their heads explode.
Ah, the Post. I can’t remember who said, in the 1940s, that it was an “exciting paper to read because you never knew on what page you would find a page-one story.” Some things never change.
feckless
Maybe I’m wrong, but do newsworthy straight marriages get makeout pictures?
I think the WaPo put that picture on the front page for two groups 1) that elderly bigot and those fundamentalist parents et al 2) and the people here who complain about the bigots.
The bigots aren’t the problem for gay rights, the real issue is media that manipulates the bigots for profit.
The point of the picture was not to educate the ignorant or demonstrate that homosexuals are the normal people deserving equal rights, that picture was purposefully divisive, and this response to the bigot response is evident of that fact.
(IMHO the flood of images of CA gay marriage makeouts in 2004 helped mobilize the bigot/GOP base to oppose Kerry, thus setting back gay rights.)
The “liberal” media is supposedly “championing” gay rights, while its editors purposefully inflame the opposition to those rights, because conflict sells papers/gets cable tv coverage.
The advancement of civil rights in D.C., should be frontpage news, but the WaPo could just show wedding announcement photos, people infront of the justice of the peace, its not the only image but it seems like the only one given.
The original fight for civil rights in this country the media’s visuals (print & tv) helped convince the recalcitrant white bigots that black people were actually people and deserved to be treated as such.
I think the ubiquitous makeout pictures today have the opposite effect of the historic media images of the fire hoses and police dogs set on marchers or that little girl going into the school in her white dress.
the end problem, how to change the haters and how to combat the hydra of conservative media influence.